Mount Joy Snowman

Nice little shower just rolled through here, dropped one or two hundredths of an inch. Temp holding at 64 but skies starting to brighten now, can see clearing looking north towards Mt. Gretna.

Snowman is fully aware of the propensity of the Goofus to light up the snow maps at the post-300 hour and has accounted for that accordingly, that is to say, not at all haha. But he is always ready to eat crow if the circumstances demand it!

Hear ye hear ye! Mount Joy Snowman decrees to the board that he has labored over every model, studied every almanac, and spoken to every Seer, and after rigorous deliberation of the foregoing, he hereby declares snow season over for the LSV. It brings him no joy to make this proclamation but he has the authority to do so because, well, he is the self-anointed Snowman of Mount Joy, a title with limitless power. In honor of this declaration, let's hear your 2020/2021 seasonal snowfall totals. I shall start by announcing a grand total of 33.4 glorious inches. Fire away friends!

Correct haha Yes very low, only a smidge above 360’ while sitting at the base of a ridge. I’m quite prone to cold air inversions on calm clear nights.

Looks like I bottomed out at 24 again last night, thinking that may be the coldest temp I hit until next winter. And don’t get me started on MDT being the official representative for our local climate ha.

Looks like I bottomed out at 24 last night, not too shabby. Currently sitting at a brisk 34. I only got .22" of precip (no flurries or graupel witnessed here but plenty of reports around the area), which makes for several events in a row now where I've gotten significantly less precip than modeled. Anyway, maybe someone on here can help me out with this little conundrum. The official low last night for MDT is shown as 29; however, when you look at the actual 5-minute interval METAR data there are a number of instances where the temp hit 28 (see: https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/zoa/getobext.php?sid=kmdt). So, why the heck isn't 28 listed as the official low? I have noticed this on other occasions as well. Mount Joy Snowman demands answers!

Ah hah, I knew there'd be graupel somewhere today! I can rest easy now tonight.

I figured as much with the elevational differences out that way. What are you sittin at anyway? You may be noticing a theme with me asking everyone their elevation. I have big problems with topo maps haha.

Was just going to ask you how things were out that way, as it looks like some nice cells have been moving through all morning, particularly just to your north.

Well it looks like the snow threat mostly fizzled out, as much of the near-term guidance was suggesting yesterday. Checking out some snow cams this morning, it looks like just an inch or two across the highest elevations of the Laurels and northern tier. The Elk Mountain cam seemed to have the most action going on, as Greensnow's pics would seem to suggest. Some nice deep cold air rushing in here on the backside, could see some decent convective snow cells making things interesting for some areas across the Midstate today, looks to be a pretty potent one right now pushing in towards Tyrone. It feels like a graupel kind of day to me as well. Good news is, while still windy today, it doesn't look as diabolical as it had the potential to be a few days ago. Cold is the story, with MOS guidance liking low temps around 25 tonight for most of the LSV and possibly a couple ticks lower than that for Friday night. NWS P&C doesn't seem quite as convinced but who knows, maybe we'll be able to make a run at that April 3rd record of 24 from 1896 after all, key will be the winds calming down to allow for the best radiational cooling. Onward.....

Vaughn is a good one, and yes Caminiti did admit everything before he passed away back in 2004. He also had a years-long substance abuse problem and ultimately died of a cocaine/heroin overdose. I couldn't agree more. I usually get out there with some buddies once a year as well, love the way the skyline seems to shoot up right out of the outfield. Great park.

What's you elevation out there in Chalk Hill? You above 2,000 ft.?

Brady Anderson is always the first guy I think of when thinking back to the guys of the steroid era who had ridiculous outlier seasons. I don't know why but Ken Caminiti is another that always comes to mind when thinking of guys who transformed their "look" more than nature would allow haha.

A man after my own heart.

Yeah it looks to focus more over northcentral PA into northern NY. What elevation you sittin at up 'er?

I would gladly accept this honor. The weight of it is not lost on me haha. Also, I fixed my post but meant to say March 19th, not March 8th, in regards to the record low stuff. 12z GFS likes a nice 4-6" type event across "God's Country" late Wednesday night, similar to 0z Euro. NAM isn't really having it but it's also at range a bit.

46 with sun coming through here. First thunderstorm of the year yesterday as I recorded a daily total of .54" of H2O. This translates to .015 yards, 8.52 x 10(-6) (my attempt at an exponent) miles, 13.716 millimeters, or .0000682 furlongs.....alright I'll stop now. Anyway, still like the northern tier to get some decent snow later this week and some anomalous cold air to briefly move in. 850s in the -10 to -15 range are quite stout for this time of year, could see some good radiational cooling Friday night as skies clear and winds lessen. As for cold records, don't think we'll break any around here, as record lows sit at 22 and 24 for April 2 and 3, respectively. The April 1st record of 11 from 1923 is a real doozy, quite the outlier, got to go back to March 19th to find a daily record lower than that. Min max records all seem out of reach as well, with records in the low to mid 30s. FYI, this is all in regards to Harrisburg area. Carry on gents....

Haha yeah somehow I'm not buying a 19 degree morning in northcentral North Carolina in early April but I've been wrong before! Either way it looks like we are heading for a brief shot of some anomalous cold air late next week and maybe even a dash of snow for some northern peeps. Worth keeping an eye on for sure.

.86” total for me. The wind threat for friday looks like the real deal. You know CTP means business when they start throwing around terms like “isallobaric couplet” haha.

Yes I noticed that as well and thought the same thing. However, things have been filling in pretty steadily since then and a couple decent downpours rolled through. Looks like a nice blob blowing up around the Baltimore area heading this way as well.

Well that escalated quickly, what was supposed to be a nuisance type rain is now looking like a hefty soaking. For days on end my NWS P&C was only showing around a tenth of an inch of rain but now it's damn near an inch. Almost all the models want to soak the area with well over an inch (particularly from lancaster and points east), although most of them failed to pick up on this potential until roughly the last 12-24 hours. Pretty poor performance all around.

Yes that’s me, PSU everything. The last couple days I’ve actually been busy following the NCAA wrestling championships. Mat Madness comes before March Madness for me ha. But yes I like the new PSU basketball hire, unfortunately all the players have entered the transfer portal though so good luck to the guy. Penn State has just never been able to figure out the basketball puzzle, very frustrating.

Well, the chances of seeing even a smidge of snow, to the extent that such chances ever existed at all, went kaput. You could see yesterday that the "threat" was fizzling faster than anticipated. A bit less rain than I thought I'd get here too, only .87". Now we embrace backdoor cold front season as we pray for one last onion snow.

Exactly. Well stated.

And yet I root for all of it. Guilty as charged. I can't help myself. I want maximum chaos when it comes to weather. I want to see extreme events and records broken. Heck, it's the reason I'm a weather enthusiast and on this very forum. But you are so right that lives are lost in all extreme weather and that reality does have to fit in somewhere. A tricky balance.